The Ecumenical Council (painting)

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The Ecumenical Council
Saint Petersburg, Florida

The Ecumenical Council is a

surrealist painting by Spanish artist Salvador Dalí completed in 1960. It is one of his masterpieces, taking two years to complete and very large at 299.7 by 254 centimetres (118.0 in × 100.0 in). The painting is a complex assemblage of art historical references and religious scenes emphasizing Catholic
symbolism.

Dalí was inspired to paint The Ecumenical Council upon the 1958 election of Pope John XXIII, as the pope had extended communication to Geoffrey Fisher, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the first such invitation in more than four centuries. The painting expresses Dalí's renewed hope in religious leadership following the devastation of World War II.

Today, it is housed in the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Background

Salvador Dalí was 54 years old when he began to paint The Ecumenical Council. He was established as a surrealist with a reputation for shocking audiences with fantastic imagery, something that

New York Times chief art critic John Canaday later characterized as "the naughtiness that obsessed him".[1] His work began to take on darker, more violent overtones during World War II.[2] Possibly spurred both by the death of his father in 1950 and his interest in the writings of French theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
, Dalí began to incorporate religious iconography in his work.

He was by this time an international star and able to secure an audience with Pope Pius XII.[3] By the late 1950s, both religious and cosmic matters preoccupied his work while his canvases became especially large, as if, according to author Kenneth Wach, he was "motivated by a desire to match such admired historical antecedents as the Spanish artists Murillo, Velázquez, and Zurbarán, and thereby to secure his place in the art of the century".[4] When a new pope was being considered in 1958, Dalí was an enthusiastic supporter of Angelo Giuseppe Cardinal Roncalli, to the extent that Roncalli's ear became the subject of his trompe-l'œil composition The Sistine Madonna (1958).[5]

Description

The Ecumenical Council is an assemblage of religious scenes and other symbols with personal significance to Dalí that he often repeated in his works. At the top center of the piece is the Holy Trinity: a youthful Father extends an arm to cover his face and is shown without genitals. Below and to the left of God is Jesus, holding a cross. The Holy Spirit floats to the right with his face obscured while a dove flies overhead. Between Jesus and the Holy Spirit is a scene from the Papal coronation. Dalí's wife Gala is shown kneeling under this area, holding a book and a cross. Beside her are the Cap de Creus cliffs. Dalí did not sign the canvas; instead he included a self-portrait in the lower left corner, looking out at the viewer as he stands in front of a blank canvas.[6][7]

Dalí's The Trinity Study for The Ecumenical Council, 1960. Oil on canvas. 58.4 x 66 cm. Vatican Gallery, Vatican

The top and bottom portions of the composition are markedly different, as the figures above are not sharply defined and they blend into each other with sweeping clouds. The figures, rock, and water in the lower portion, in contrast, are clear and have distinct shapes and lines. The merging between the two parts of the canvas is Dalí's depiction of the marriage between heaven and earth.[7] A preparatory study for The Ecumenical Council was eventually exhibited as The Trinity. Scholars debate as to who is represented by the figures in both works. The top figure, commonly recognized as God the Father, is more reminiscent of a naked, suffering Christ (the study depicts the top figure with male genitalia). The lower figures are androgynous, wearing gowns and posing with traditionally feminine attributes. The lower right figure, which is recognized as the Holy Spirit by the dove over its head, has his hands crossed, a gesture associated with the Annunciation: the revelation that Mary will give birth to Christ. It is unclear if the dove in The Ecumenical Council is a symbol of the Holy Spirit or a messenger from the archangel Gabriel.[5]

Influences

The painting represents several of Dalí's ideas on art and religion. It is heavily inspired by

St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome) under which God floats in the painting and the composition of the trinity based on Michelangelo's The Last Judgment (1537–41) are references to the art of the Renaissance.[6]

Dalí considered some forms of 20th-century

Mariano Fortuny, a 19th-century Spanish painter.[1]

Symbolism

Religious symbols are pervasive throughout the piece. The title is an homage to the coronation of Angelo Giuseppe Cardinal Roncalli, who became Pope John XXIII in 1958. When John XXIII met with Geoffrey Fisher, the Archbishop of Canterbury, it was the first time the two churches had officially communicated in 426 years.[7] Dalí was enthusiastic about the meeting. He was asked to design a cathedral in Arizona that never came to fruition. However, to discuss the design, in 1959 Dalí requested an audience with the pope. Dalí's vision for the cathedral was that it should be shaped like a pear, which to him represented the resurrection of the Middle Ages, the resurgence of Christian unity and was an appropriate symbol for the council in which the pope and the archbishop would meet.[5]

Dalí's wife, Gala, whose given name was Elena Ivanovna Diakonov, often served as his model and

Port Lligat, whose patron saint is Helena, often using the surrounding scenery in his paintings, and worked in a studio there where he painted The Ecumenical Council. The Spanish aspects of the painting are Dalí's expressions of patriotism.[7]

Dalí portrays Jesus without solid form in the painting, achieved with rapid strokes to evoke mystic or atomic energy.

omega point". The interconnectedness of ideas espoused by Chardin is represented by the multiple images that blend into each other in the painting.[6][7]

Provenance

Dalí's study, The Trinity, is a smaller painting measuring 58.4 by 66 centimetres (23.0 in × 26.0 in). As with The Ecumenical Council, he displays the unity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit: God floating with his face blocked by his hand above Jesus, whose foot is extended and who points upward, with a faceless Holy Spirit. It was exhibited with The Ecumenical Council at the Carstairs Gallery in New York in 1960,[5] whereupon critic Michael Strauss expressed his impression that Dalí was "a very different person" from the previous creator of lascivious works of art. During the exhibition Dalí stated that The Ecumenical Council commemorated "the greatest historical event of our time and which, prudently, I have painted before it has met".[13]

Dalí became friends with American art collectors

Musei Vaticani in Vatican City
.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Canaday, pp. 98–103.
  2. ^ Wach, p. 23.
  3. ^ a b Wach, p. 24.
  4. ^ Wach, p. 26.
  5. ^ a b c d Ades and Taylor, p. 398.
  6. ^ a b c d e The Ecumenical Council, National Gallery of Victoria Educational Resource. Retrieved on July 23, 2010.
  7. ^ a b c d e f Wach, p. 106.
  8. ^ Wach, p. 104.
  9. ^ Milani, Joanne (March–April 2007). "Dalí and the Spanish Baroque", Tampa Bay Magazine, pp. 205–207.
  10. ^ Dalí, p. 5.
  11. ^ Romero, p. 273.
  12. ^ Radford, p. 251.
  13. ^ Strauss, Micheal (January 1961). "New York", The Burlington Magazine, 103 (694) p. 35.
  14. ^ a b Radford, pp. 313–318.
  15. ^ Bennett, Lennie (July 3, 2010). Obituary - Eleanor Morse Archived 2016-09-13 at the Wayback Machine, St. Petersburg Times (Florida). Retrieved on July 25, 2010.

Bibliography

  • Ades, Dawn and Taylor, Michael (curators). Dalí, Rizzoli/Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2004.
    ISBN 0-8478-2673-2
  • Canaday, John. Embattled Critic: Views on Modern Art, Farrar, Straus and Cudahy: New York, 1962.
  • Dalí, Salvador. 50 Secrets to Magic Craftsmanship, Dover Publications, 1948.
    ISBN 0-486-27132-3
  • Radford, Robert. Dalí, Phaidon Press, 1997.
    ISBN 0-7148-3411-4
  • Romero, Luis. Salvador Dalí, Ediciones Poligrafica, S.A., 2003.
    ISBN 84-343-1031-7
  • Wach, Kenneth. Salvador Dalí: Masterpieces from the Collection of the Salvador Dalí Museum, Harry N. Abrams, 1996.
    ISBN 0-8109-3235-0

External links
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Ecumenical_Council_(painting)&oldid=1218725310"